A Day in the Life of Leonard Church
by Reynutocx
Summary: -ONE SHOT- Church goes through a typical day full of: spying on the reds, yelling at Tucker, missing shots, yelling in general, team meetings, and, of course, Caboose. Lots of Caboose. Rated T for language.


**Disclaimer: I own noting but my own creativity.**

 **AN: Heeeeeyyy guuuyyys! No, I'm not drunk; I'm sleep deprived and thought this would be a good idea. And for all you viewers who don't like swearing (this is me, but it will never stop me from loving RvB), I've sort of censored it. And no, I'm not going for the record of longest one shot ever. It just turned out really long.**

 **Set in Blood Gulch season 2ish. Aww, the good old days. See if you can find all the references I put in here. Some are pretty obvious, but I've referenced an RT short as well as an Animated Adventure. They should be harder to pick out.**

6:00

Beep! Beep! Beep!

Leonard Church groaned and smacked his alarm clock. Why did his day have to start so damn early? He may be a ghost, but he still needed his sleep just like everyone else. His robot body, of course, didn't need it, but Church found himself getting tired just as much as he did when he was a human which f***ing sucked. Literally the only benefit to being a ghost was being able to turn off his ears when Caboose was being particularly stupid.

Church grumbled and climbed out of his bed yawing and stretching more out of habit than anything. He made his way through blue base into the kitchen. No one was up yet. Typical. He sat down at the table and poured himself some motor oil. God, he f***ing missed coffee. Church was not what you would call a morning person and become a ghost hadn't changed that. It just made it impossible for him to eat or drink anything.

After finishing his "breakfast", Church went to go wake up his teammates and he used that word in the loosest sense of the word. He felt like he was babysitting most of the time.

"Wake up!" he called loudly knocking on Tucker's door. When he got no response, Church sighed and opened the door. Tucker, as always, was asleep drooling on his pillow.

"Hey!" shouted Church. Nothing. He lent closer. "Hey, Tucker! Get up!"

"I'm awake," mumbled Tucker who still hadn't opened his eyes.

Church rolled his eyes. He knew what would happen next. "Get up then."

Tucker moaned and hid his face in his pillow. "Five more minutes."

"Fine. But only five," said Church. "I actually need you to work today."

Church walked out of the room. Great. Judging by his behavior, Tucker would be asleep for another hour. F***ing fantastic. Church, against his better judgment, walked down the hall to the next room. God, he hated this part of the day.

"It's morning, Caboose!" he yelled knocking on the door. He really didn't want to go in if he could help it. Caboose often had sharp objects all over his floor. Church wasn't sure if it was on purpose. Maybe Caboose was just that stupid.

"I know," came the muffled answer from the other side of the door. "Morning is when the sun is up."

Church would have said that the sun never set in Blood Gulch, but he knew that wouldn't do any good. It'd probably just confuse Caboose more. That was weird though now that he thought about it. Why did the sun never set? Did that mean that they could all be nocturnal and didn't know it?

"Ok, well get up then." Church turned to leave, but was stopped by Cabooses panicked voice.

"Wait! Church don't go!"

Church sighed. He really wanted to leave Caboose. He really, really, really did, but it was kind of his job as the team leader to help the other members. Whose decision was that anyway?

Church pushed open the door to find Caboose huddled on his bed. His arms were wrapped around his gigantic body and his eyes were full of fear.

"What it is?" Church asked.

Caboose just looked embarrassed and looked at the pajamas he was still wearing. "I'm stuck," he explained.

Church groaned. "Caboose, don't tell me you forgot how to use buttons again."

"Yes." Caboose looked at him with big pleading eyes.

Why? This happened at least once a week. Church was so sick of trying to explain it the idiot. How complicated were buttons really? And yet, Caboose still managed to f*** it up.

Church looked around the room and spied on of Caboose's shirts that he's left on a chair. He picked it up and showed it to Caboose.

"Ok, this is a button," he said gesturing to it. "See how it's on one side of the cloth?"

Caboose nodded earnestly.

"I take the button and push it through the hole on the shirt," Church explained demonstrating. "See?"

Caboose furrowed his brow and nodded.

"Try it," Church said exasperatedly.

Caboose fumbled around with his shirt for a while, but managed to unbutton the first button. Instantly, he smiled.

"Oh my God did you see that! I did it!"

Church just rolled his eyes. "Yeah, good job, buddy. Only about 10 more to go."

He left Caboose to finish getting dressed, but he swore that today we was going to call command to get Caboose some other pajamas. Ones without buttons. They were clearly too complicated for him.

6:26

"Get up, Tucker!"

"I'm awake."

"That's what you said the last two times!"

"Five more minutes."

"Augh! Fine! I give up! I'm done!"

Church stalked out of the room and back down to the kitchen where Caboose was eating breakfast. When Church arrived, he saw it was a complete mess. Cereal was spilled all over the floor and an empty gallon jug of milk sat on the table, its continents leaking all over it and onto the floor as well. Some paper that had been on the table now was scattered around the room along with a bunch of marbles. Where the Hell did those come from? And in the middle of the mess was Caboose eating a cookie.

Church narrowed his eyes. "What the Hell happened here!" he yelled.

Caboose looked guiltily around at the mess before saying "Tucker did it."

"No! Tucker did not do it!" shouted Church. "Because Tucker is still asleep even though I've been trying to get him up for the last half hour!"

There was a brief silence.

"Tucker did it."

"Oh God dammit!"

7:08

Church was getting his sniper rifle ready when Tucker finally decided to show up wearing only his underwear and a t shirt.

"Dude, why didn't you wake me up?" he asked angrily.

Church could have killed him right then, but he settled for yelling at him instead.

"I did! Like a million f***ing times! And do you know what you said every time?"

Tucker shrugged.

""I'm awake". That what you said, but you never got up!"

Tucker looked unapologetic. "I don't remember any of that. Are you sure it happened?"

"Yes!" Shouted Church. They did this almost every day. Why couldn't Tucker just believe him? What motivation could he possibly have to lie about it? More importantly, why couldn't Tucker remember it? Was his brain just on auto piolet? That meant that even Tucker's subconscious mid was bent an annoying the living Hell out of him. Well, it certainly made sense.

Just then, Caboose came out of his room in his full body armor with his helmet under his arm.

"Church I'm already-oh it's you," he said noticing Tucker.

"Well good morning to you too," Tucker responded.

"I don't want you coming," said Caboose. "Church it my best friend."

"For the last time: I am not your best friend," Church argued, but he knew it wouldn't do any good. Caboose either wouldn't acknowledge it, or just forget it within a minute. Why did he have to wind up with such an idiot on his team? "Tucker were going to do some training, so get dressed and be back here in ten minutes or-"

"-you'll leave without me?" Tucker asked hopefully.

"Or I will lock you in a room with Caboose and wait until only one of you is left."

Tucker practically ran back into his room.

"Hey Church?" Caboose asked.

"What?"

"I lost my keys."

Church frowned. "To what?" as far as he knew they didn't have any keys to anything in blue base.

"To the base."

"We don't have any keys to the base."

Caboose's eyes widened and he looked horrified. "What if I get locked out?" he asked franticly.

Church wiped his hand over his face. God, Caboose was so f***ing stupid. It was like trying to talk to a five year old. No, that was too becoming. It was like taking to a dog. A really dumb dog. How could he explain this to him?

"If you get locked out, you can just break in," he finally said. Caboose didn't look convinced. "It's really easy, because there are no doors."

"Ok," said Caboose happily.

Tucker came back in is aqua/teal/whatever he was calling it these days armor and stood next to Caboose who promptly reached out his hand and pulled on one of Tucker's curls.

"Touch," he said.

"What the Hell, man?" Tucker yelled stepping back from him. "Didn't you ever learn it's rude to pull other people's hair?"

"You're not a person. You're Tucker."

Church sighed. Five year olds. Both of them.

7:24

"Ok, you're just going to shoot at them," said Church indicating the targets he'd set up a little ways down the canyon.

"Why?" asked Tucker.

"Because I said so," said Church. He was the blue leader; he shouldn't have to deal with this. He was sure that Sarge never had to put up with this on red team.

"Why?" Tucker asked again apparently not satisfied.

Church frowned. "Because I f***ing said so," he paused for a moment "and you need practice," he added lamely.

Church could tell that Tucker was scowling under his helmet, but he went off and started shooting at one of the targets anyway muttering something about faking his death one of these days so he wouldn't need to put up with this BS anymore.

Great. One down. One to go.

Church tuned to Caboose who was using his gun as a walking stick and staring up at the sky. He honestly couldn't figure out for the life of him why Caboose was even there. He wasn't a good fighter and didn't seem to have any interest in it. He was clearly too dumb to pass any sort of intelligence test. It made Church wonder how he'd even wound up in the army in the first place.

"Hey, Caboose, we're doing target practice."

Caboose seemed startled and looked around for a few seconds before seeing Church. "Oh. Ok," he said raising his gun and pointing it at Church.

"No, not at me! At the targets!" Church shouted, but it was too late. Caboose fired his gun and Church heard a metallic ding as the bullet passed through his body.

Church was more than a little pissed off. It seemed like every time Caboose had a gun in his hand, he had to shoot him. He was just lucky he couldn't be killed anymore. That was Caboose's fault in the first place. He swore he was never getting a tank again while Caboose was still around.

"Oh come on!" he yelled. "I just fixed this body!"

"Sorry!" Caboose apologized. "Is it broken?"

"You just shot me! Of course it's broken." Church said huffily. He tried moving everything and it seemed to work ok. Maybe his body was just so used to being shot it didn't affect it anymore. He'd have to check it out when he got home.

Church set Caboose off to go shoot at a target closer to Tucker in high hope that if Caboose missed again it would be Tucker, and not him, who he hit.

He took out his sniper rifle and aimed at the farthest target. He lined up the shot perfectly, fired. It missed by a good ten feet.

"F***."

He tried again. Another miss.

"F***."

He started shooting angrily at the target. He knew he could do this. Ok, maybe he hadn't ever hit a target, but there was a first time for everything. He had managed to shoot Caboose once. He'd been aiming for his head on only managed to shoot off his pinky toe, but it still counted.

After a few minutes of constant missing, Church threw his gun down. The damn thing had to be broken.

"Can I try?" asked a voice behind him.

Church turned to find Tucker standing a few feet away from him.

"No," he said picking the sniper rifle back up. "It's mine. You have your own gun."

"But I want to use the sniper rifle," complained Tucker.

Church frowned. "I said no! The stupid thing's broken anyway."

Tucker seemed disappointed. "I never get to use the sniper rifle," he muttered as he walked away.

8:42

"Are we done yet?" asked Tucker.

Church shook his head. "No, not until I hit the target."

"We're going to be here all day then!"

Church was very annoyed by now. He'd been trying to hit this thing for what seemed like forever. He'd tried different guns. He'd stood at different distances. He'd fired at point blank range, only to miss again. How was that even possible? He'd closed his eyes, nothing. He'd tried sitting down, standing, kneeling, lying on his stomach, but nothing seemed to work.

He fired at the target again. It missed.

"F***!"

"Oh for the love of God. Here," Tucker stood next to Church and fired at it with his gun. The bullet hit the target in the red area.

"There," he said. "If anyone asks, you've hit the target."

Church wasn't happy, but he guessed that that was enough practice for today. They were almost out of ammo anyway. He looked around to find Caboose to tell him that they were leaving, but didn't see him anywhere.

"He's over there," Tucker said pointing behind Shelia.

Church walked over to the tank to find Caboose crouched on the ground with his helmet off. In his hand were a bunch of sticks that he's found somewhere. A similar pile of sticks was next to one of Shelia's treds.

"What the f*** is going on?" Church asked. Seriously what was this?

"Church! You're interrupting our date," Caboose said. "We're having cookies and tea." He seemed to be chewing something. Church was pretty sure it was not edible.

"Spit that out," he ordered.

"No!" Caboose protested.

"Do it!"

Caboose made a face and spit out something onto the ground. On closer examination it only seemed to be gum. Oh, that was alright then.

"This was my dessert," Caboose said sadly.

Church rolled his eyes. "Caboose, come on. We're leaving."

"But Shelia-"

"-she's broken, Caboose."

Caboose looked like he was going to cry. "Shelia?" he asked the tank. She didn't respond. The scene might have been endearing if it hadn't been Caboose, but it was do Church was just pissed off.

"Come on," he said. "How long have you been out here anyway?"

"A long time."

That could have meant anything from five minutes to a month to Caboose.

"How long?"

"Half an hour maybe?"

Church was actually impressed that Caboose hadn't managed to kill anyone in that time. It had to be a new record for him. Still, he didn't like that Caboose had been off alone this whole time. He tended to get lost or injured when he was left alone for long stretches of time. Or he's go off and try to "make friends" with enemies. It never ended well.

"Come on, Caboose," Church said. "Put your helmet on. We're leaving."

Caboose didn't look happy, but he said goodbye to Shelia and followed Church back to blue base.

11:24

Church's concentration was interrupted by the arrival of the rest of his team.

"They doing anything?" asked Tucker.

Church shook his head. "The yellow one's not even up yet."

"Orange," Caboose corrected.

"No, dude," Tucker said to him. "He's clearly yellow."

Caboose seemed upset. "I think he's orange," he muttered.

"You need to go back to kindergarten then," Tucker snapped.

"Back?" asked Caboose. "How can I go back when I haven't been there yet?"

"That explains a lot," was Tucker's response.

Church sighed. Augh. The five year olds were back again. Did they come all the way up here just to argue in front of him? They were trained soldiers. Couldn't they just shut up and let him talk?

"Shut the f*** up both of you!" Church shouted. "Do you want to know what's going on or not?"

"Not really." "Yes!" said Tucker and Caboose simultaneously.

Church took that as a yes. "The red one's been out fiddling with the jeep. He also seemed to be making a bomb for a while. He buried it under the ground. Then he put a box of Oreos on top of it. The other red one came out for a while and talked to him, but then left. He's been inside ever since. The pink one's been planting a garden, I think. No idea where the purple one is"

"Did they say anything?" Tucker asked.

Church shrugged. "I can't hear them from here."

Tucker seemed to be interested in the sniper rifle in Church's hands. "Can I use that?" he asked.

"No."

"Come on!"

"You just want to spy on Donut."

"The pink chick? Yeah."

"Tucker, you've met Donut. You know he's a guy."

"No she's not. Why would a guy want to wear pink armor?"

"You expect the red team to make sense?"

Tucker shrugged. "I guess not."

"Oh my God!" Caboose suddenly screamed. "Where's Tex?"

Church gave him a look of utter disbelief. Delayed reaction much? Tex had been dead for at least three months. Caboose had helped him bury her. His question was so dumb Church wasn't going to justify it with an answer. There was a saying out there: there are no stupid questions. Church didn't agree with that. There were stupid questions _and_ stupid people who asked them.

Church turned off his ears so he wouldn't have to hear the other's conversation. He went back to spying on the reds. The yellow one had seemed to have finally gotten up and was outside. He seemed to be considering the box of Oreos on the ground. Church hoped that he would go for it and get blown up by the bomb under them, but one of the red ones-the darker one- came up to him, said something, and the yellow one shrugged and walked away. Dammit! So close.

Church felt someone shaking his shoulder, hut he ignored it.

"I can't hear you!" he shouted. "My ears are malfunctioning again. Come back and try again in a few hours. Or never. Never would be good."

12:02

The blue team was gathered around their table back in blue base. Church had wanted to call a team meeting, but Caboose had complained that he was hungry and Tucker had seconded the motion seeing as he'd had nothing for breakfast. So the three of them had decided to eat and talk at the same time.

Church, since he didn't eat anymore, just watched the other two and waited for them to be somewhat done before he started talking. Caboose was trying to catch grapes in his mouth and had only succeed in dropping most of them on the floor. Guess who'd have to clean that up later.

"Ok, that enough," said Church after what felt like the millionth grape had fallen on the floor. "Just eat them normally."

There was a silence save Caboose's loud chewing. Church hated loud chewing; it drove him insane. He was convinced that Caboose knew this and did it on purpose to annoy the living Hell out of him.

"So, I thought we'd talk about a pressing issue today and then if anyone has anything to add, they can at the end," Church said trying to start the team meeting.

"Do we have to?" Tucker asked. "We could just pick up some chicks somewhere."

"In a canyon?"

"Maybe I didn't think this through all the way, but you never know! There could be some poor, lost chick out there all alone and desperate for some man to save her-"

"-no there's not. Everyone knows that chickens live in cages and on egg cartons. Not canyons."

"Shut up, Caboose! That's not what I meant!"

Church sighed. This was why they got nothing done.

"Guys!" he shouted. The two of them shut up. "Our washer is, as you know, is broken."

Tucker looked confused. "It is?"

Church ignore the question. "Now, I took a look at it and there were pieces missing so I called command to get new ones. I put them in this morning, but when I went to wash my laundry it was broken again. More pieces were missing. They couldn't have just disappeared on their own, so I want to know where they are. We can't just keep calling command for more."

"Don't look at me!" defended Tucker. "What would I want with washer parts anyway?"

Church wasn't interested in him however; his attention was focused on thy young man sitting across from him.

Church sighed. He really didn't have time for this. "Where are they, Caboose?" he asked.

"I've been taking them," Caboose said. He didn't sound apologetic at all. "I've been trying to fix Shelia with them, but it's not really working."

"So that's what you were doing today?" Church asked.

Caboose shook his head. "No, we were having a date and you ruined it. It's ok. You're still my best friend."

Church couldn't say he was surprised. "Where are the pieces now?"

Caboose frowned. "I lost them."

"Ok, fine. I'll call command and get more," Church said. If Caboose had lost the pieces, there was no finding them. "But no more taking them, ok? We'll fix Shelia soon."

"Ok!" said Caboose happily now that he knew he wasn't in trouble and that his tank friend was going to be fixed.

"Great," said Church. "Now does anyone have anything they'd like to bring up?"

"There are no chicks here."

"I lost a tooth yesterday."

"I never get to use the sniper rifle."

"I'm hungry."

"Caboose stole all my socks!"

"There's a crayon up my nose."

"I have to get up way too early!"

"Tucker's mean!"

"Caboose punched me in the face for no reason!"

"Tucker made fun of my picture!"

"Caboose woke me up at three in the morning and wanted to play marbles!"

"Tucker-"

"-shut up! Shut the f*** up both of you!" Church roared. That was it. That was the last time he ever asked for suggestions for anything from them. "From now on, I'm going to install a complaint box! You can put anything you want to say in there!"

"Can I write with crayons?" asked Caboose.

"You can write in Ketchup for all I care," said Church was already deciding the best way to disguise a paper shredder to look like a box.

2:38

"Yello? This is blue command, dude. We read you loud and clear, dude."

Church sighed. He hated calling command. It took him forever to talk to a person, when he did get that far, and when he did, it was always Vic. Church didn't like Vic. Hell, he didn't like most people, but that was not the point. Vic was far too cheerful for him and he was always calling him 'dude'.

"Yeah, hello."

"What's up, dude! Haven't heard from you in a while! How's things at blue base?"

Crappy. "Fine."

"Well that's good news, dude. Things are a-ok here at command."

"Yeah, I bet they are," said Church. He wished he could be in command. Then he could speak to his team through radio only. Or maybe he wouldn't even answer it. Hell, who was he kidding? He definitely wasn't going to answer it. No one would ever willingly associate with blue team. "Hey Vic, we need some stuff."

"Don't know if I can help you out there, dude. We just sent you stuff last week."

"Caboose lost it."

"How is Caboose, dude? I never get to talk to him anymore."

That was because Church wouldn't let him call command anymore. Caboose never knew what was going on and forgot what he wanted to say, so he just wound up chatting with Vic.

"Caboose? Still stupid."

"Aw, well, I'm sure he'll get better soon."

"Stupid has a cure?"

"No, dude."

Then why did Vic bring it up? You know what? Never mind. Church had long since given up in anything in his life making sense. Church realized that Vic was getting off topic.

"Hey, we need more parts for the washer."

"We gave you a medic. Can't you just use him?"

"Umm, no." said Church after a moment.

"Well I'll see what I can do, dude, but don't expect anything yet."

"Hey, do you have any pajamas without buttons on them?"

There was a silence on the other end of the radio. It seemed it was Vic's turn to be confused.

"I'll get back to you on that one, dude."

Church figured that was the best he was going to get.

"Ok, bye," he said.

"Adios, dude. Command out."

The line went dead. Church decided there was no way there was going to get any of the stuff he asked for and went back in the base.

He'd barely made it two feet inside when a book was thrown at his head.

"What the Hell's going on?" Church yelled dodging the projectile.

"Look out!" called Tucker from behind the doorway. Church turned to find him sticking his head out from behind a wall.

"Tucker, what the f*** is going on?"

Tucker narrowed his eyes. "War."

"Yeah, I knew that. We've been at war for years now. I meant more specifically."

"War."

"Oh thanks for elaborating," Church said sarcastically.

"No, man. Caboose and I are at war."

"Why?"

Tucker shrugged. "I don't know. One minute he was fine and the next he was screaming and throwing stuff at me. So we're at war now."

"Caboose?" Church called.

"Hello!" said Caboose happily coming out from the next room. He was dragging ripped pillow with him. Fantastic. It looked like pillow stuffing was going to get added to the list of stuff Church had cleaned up today.

"Hey, buddy," said Church carefully just in case he was still violent. "What's going on?"

"Tucker did it."

Church tried to get him to explain more, but Caboose refused to elaborate. He just repeated "Tucker did it." over and over again. In the end, Church just gave up and pretended that the whole event hadn't happened.

4:00

Church was back spying on the red team when he realized that one of them was coming over in their jeep. Oh, Hell no. He was getting shot. Church aimed and fired his sniper rifle. It missed.

"F***."

The red didn't even seem to notice it. He pulled up to the blue base and got out of the jeep.

Church watched as Caboose walked up to him and hugged him. Augh. What had Church told him about making friends with enemies? It never ended well. Caboose was going to get himself killed one of these days. The red seemed surprised, but didn't seem to be acting violently.

Church threw the sniper rifle on his back and went down to talk to the invader.

"Dude, get out of here!" Church shouted at the red.

The red just looked at him. "I'm not here to fight," he said. "Donut's hurt."

"So what do you want us to do? Throw a party?"

The red shook his head. "No, he just wanted to tell Caboose."

Church was confused. "Caboose? Why?" That seemed backwards to him. If Church was injured and in pain the last thing he would want was Caboose's stupid face hovering over him babbling nonsense.

The red glanced at Caboose who apparently hadn't heard the entire conversation and was staring up at the sun.

"Hey, Caboose!" said Church loudly snapping his fingers in front of Caboose's face.

"Huh, what? Oh, hi, Simmons!" exclaimed Caboose happily waving at him.

The red looked concerned. "Is he having memory lapses?"

Church was equally concerned for a different reason. "How does he know you?"

The red shrugged. "Caboose is always at red base. It's kind of annoying, actually."

This was news to Church. He did notice that Caboose tended to disappear for extended amounts of time, but Church hadn't wanted to talk to him about it. The more time he could spend away from Caboose, the saner he was.

"Hey, if he likes it there so much, you should take him." Church suggested.

The red shook his head. "Sarge would kill him if he found a blue in red base. Caboose," he addressed the blue. "Donut's hurt and wants you to know."

Caboose looked horrified. "Oh no! Not Private Biscuit!"

Great. Now Caboose had a pet name for him. How was he supposed to kill him if he was friends with him? Church decided that Caboose did not belong in the army.

The red started to leave and Caboose followed him.

"Hey, where do you think you're going?" Church asked.

"To visit Admiral Buttercrust."

Church would have objected, but he decided against it. Apparently Caboose went over to red base all the time anyway. He and Donut were friends and Caboose wanted to see him. Church couldn't find any reason to object to the plan. Besides if Caboose got shoot and killed over there, it was a plus for him.

So he just waved goodbye as he watched Caboose climb into the jeep and immediately begin pushing all the buttons. As they left, Church could here Caboose ask if they were there yet. Ha ha! Caboose was the reds' problem now! He could finally get some time to himself.

Church went back into his room and sat down on the bed. Yes! Finally! He could get a few hours work in without Caboose around. He didn't even have to worry about Tucker, because he was having 'alone time' in the bathroom and hadn't come out in an hour. Church didn't know what the Hell he did in there, but didn't want to find out.

Church looked at the hole Caboose's bullet had left in his body. Maybe it was time to figure out how much damage it'd actually done.

7:10

Church had been enjoying a blissful, Caboose-free, evening when he heard the reds' jeep pull up outside blue base. F***. He'd been hoping that the reds would forget to bring Caboose back or that they'd want to keep him or something. Apparently that had been too much to ask. It seemed that even the reds couldn't put up with him for more than a few hours.

Church went outside to find Donut and Caboose getting out of the jeep. Donut was out of his armor and had several bandages on his arm, leg, and around his head, but he seemed to be ok, if a little pale. Caboose was talking to him, but Church couldn't hear the words.

"Hey, Caboose," he said resigned to having his teammate back again.

"Hello."

"He didn't put anything in his mouth, did he?" Church asked Donut. "He didn't steal anything or kill anyone, right?"

Donut just laughed. "Nope. He was perfectly behaved."

Church could tell that, even under his helmet, Caboose was beaming proudly. Stupid idiot.

"Good. How about you?" Church found himself saying. He wasn't sure why he was concerned about Donut. He just seemed so nice and friendly all the time, but not annoyingy so like Vic. Church wondered what it must be like to go through life constantly happy about something.

"I'm better now. Thanks for asking," Donut said. "I think I stepped on a bomb. I thought I was going to die, but Simmons fixed me up pretty good. I'm not sure if that's possible, but here I am."

"Wait. Doc didn't do anything?" Church asked.

"He did pull a splinter out of my hand, but he didn't really know what to do."

"But isn't he a doctor?"

"He's a medic."

Oh, that explained it. Medics never knew what to do.

Donut smiled at Church. "Thanks for letting me steal Caboose for a while."

"No, any time. Seriously. You can keep him if you want," Church said. He was still prying that Donut would decide to take Caboose away.

Donut shook his head. "Tempting, but I can't. Caboose already has his own family at blue base."

Church wasn't going to call it a family, but he could see that Caboose wasn't going anywhere.

"Ok, Caboose," said Donut patting his huge head. "Be good while I'm gone."

Caboose seemed sad, but he nodded. He said goodbye to Donut and went back into the base.

Church felt a strange sense of longing as he watched Donut leave. Strange. He didn't know Donut that well, but he seemed like a nice guy, and he did take Caboose off his hands for a while. More than that, Donut's good cheer seemed to infectious. Now that he had left, Church was back to feeling annoyed.

Church walked back into the blue base kitchen to find Caboose sitting at the table with a big bag of blue candy.

"Jellybean?" he offered.

Oh no. Who'd given him that? Caboose wasn't supposed to have sugar especially this late at night. Great. Now he's be bouncing off the walls in a few minutes. Just Church's luck.

Church sat down next to Caboose and took a jellybean before realizing that he couldn't eat it. "So, why are they all blue?" he asked.

"Sarge won't eat them. He says they're dirty rotten blues, but they taste ok to me."

That didn't make any sense to Church, but he decided not to ask for clarification.

"Why are the blue candies blue raspberry? Raspberries aren't blue."

Church shrugged. "Too many foods are red. Why do you think they make the apple ones green?"

Caboose seemed strangely calm. He ate another jellybean and shook the remaining ones on the bag. He almost seemed to be nodding off. Maybe his body was trying to process the amount of sugar he's just put in it. Church hoped he's actually go to sleep, but as he watched, he could almost see a switch flip in Caboose's mind. F***. Caboose was gone. Well, more gone than usual.

"Church! Let's make cookies!" Caboose jumped up from the table and ran over to the kitchen.

"No way in Hell, buddy," said Church. He wasn't a good cook, Caboose would just make a huge mess, which he'd have to clean up later, and even if Caboose's cookie did turn out to be edible, Church couldn't even eat them.

"Yes!" Caboose said happily grabbing a bowl out of the cupboard.

Church groaned. Why did world hate him? He knew he wouldn't be able restrain Caboose and he didn't seem to be taking "no" for an answer. Caboose would just f*** it up more and make a bigger mess if he was left unsupervised. It looked like Church was going to spend his evening making cookies tonight.

"Get the cook book," he said getting up.

Caboose's eyes widened. "We have a cook book?"

"Yeah, somewhere," said Church. "Captain Flowers left it with us."

After searching through the cabinets for a few minutes, Church found the book. It was old and its cover was peeling off. There was only one recipe for cookies in it. That made it easy to pick which one to make.

"Ok, Caboose," said Church looking down at the book. "I'll read you the ingredients and you get them." He wasn't sure Caboose could read. He wasn't going to take the chance.

The two continued on until they had everything they needed. Church then instructed him on how to best mix the ingredients while he preheated the oven, because he didn't trust Caboose with anything hot, or sharp for that matter. Caboose was having a grand old time, he really enjoyed cutting in the butter. Church, on the other hand, was getting annoyed. He could see batter spilling onto the table on the floor. Caboose also wouldn't stop eating the batter.

"Stop that," Church said after the fifth time Caboose had sneaked another spoonful. "There won't be any left for the cookies."

"It tastes better though," Caboose complained.

"Yeah, but we're making cookies."

"Please?" asked Caboose.

Church was going to protest that no, they were going to cook it, but then he really thought about it. If he just let Caboose eat the batter, they'd be done much sooner. That was a plus. He wasn't going to be eating it either way, so it didn't matter to him. Caboose clearly just wanted to make batter. Another plus. So the only person who wouldn't benefit from it was Tucker, but seriously f*** Tucker. The guy had been missing for hours.

"Fine," Church said. He gave Caboose the bowl of batter he'd been mixing. "Knock yourself out."

"Yay!" Caboose cheered.

It took Church a minute to realize what he'd done. There was roughly 2 ½ cups of sugar in that bowl and now it was an hour later. If Caboose had been bad before, it was nothing compared to what he was about to be like in a few minutes. Crap. He'd f***ed up big time.

9:38

"Go to bed," Church said exasperatedly. He'd been sitting on Caboose's bed for at least 15 minutes while Caboose jumped repeatedly on it. Church shook his wet head. Caboose had thought it would really funny to pour himself a glass of water only to dump it on Church's head when he was looking the other way. Church was sure we was going to rust now.

"Go to bed," he repeated.

Church grabbed Caboose's pillow from his bed. "Caboose," whack "go," whack "to," whack "bed!" whack.

Caboose seemed to be knocked off balance and promptly sat down on the bed. He grabbed the pillow out of Church's hands.

"Go to sleep," Church ordered.

Caboose shook his head. Church wanted to strangle him. Why couldn't he just go to bed like a normal human? Why was it so hard for him just to lie down and do nothing?

Caboose pulled a bag of jacks out from under his bed.

"Play with me," he said, and Church swore that he sounded exactly like a little kid.

"Who gave you those?" he asked.

"Donut."

Church sighed. Well, that sort of explained where Caboose had been getting all his little toys.

"If I play this with you, will you go to bed?"

Caboose considered the question for a while. "Yes," he said finally.

"Fine," Church said; he was too tied to argue anymore. He sat down on the floor next Caboose's bed and put the jacks on the floor. He bounced the ball and picked up a jack before catching the ball.

"What are you doing?" asked Caboose curiously.

"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm playing," said Church annoyed. Seriously, the faster he got over with this, the sooner he could go to bed.

Caboose frowned. "That's not how you play."

Church rolled his eyes. "What do I do then?"

"You need to build a castle out of the jacks. If your castle survives the rolling boulder," Caboose indicated the rubber ball "You get a point. The first one to 6 and a half points wins."

Church wanted to say that that wasn't even close to how the game was meant to be played, but he kept his mouth shut. He wasn't going to take the time to explain how to actually play jacks. He doubted Caboose would believe him anyway, so Church just nodded and began construction of his "castle".

"Caboose," he said after a few minutes. "I'm ready now."

No response.

"Caboose?"

Still nothing.

Church tuned to find him asleep on his bed. Oh thank God. He was finally out. That meant that Church could go to bed too. He snuck out of the room and tuned off the light.

"Goodnight, buddy," he said. It was a lot easier to be nice to Caboose when he was asleep.

Church closed the door only to find himself face to face with Tucker.

"No," Church hissed. "I just got him to go to sleep."

"I wasn't doing anything," Tucker protested.

"I'm not in the mood right now. Go to bed."

"But-"

"-bed, Tucker, or I swear to God-"

"-alright. Alright. I'm going." Tucker put up his hands in surrender and walked back to his room.

Finally. The day was done.

10:14

Church sat on his bed finishing recording the team's "progress" in his log book. It never took long seeing as progress was almost always nonexistent. Church finished the last sentence and put the note book and pen back on the table by his bed.

He lied down on his bed and closed his eyes. He couldn't wait to do it all again tomorrow.

The End


End file.
